What is the lure of immersive theatre experiences and intense communities? What are we willing to give up to find meaning & a sense of belonging? Tara Isabella Burton is the author of the novels Here in Avalon, Social Creature, and The World Cannot Give, as well as the nonfiction books Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World and Self-Made: Curating Our Image from Da Vinci to the Kardashians. She is currently working on a history of magic and modernity, to be published by Convergent in late 2025. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic,  Granta, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications.